RUDIMENTS, pt. 391
(avenel slide show)
After a while all of life is
just a question of memory -
what you have, what you
want to, remember. Not have
to, just 'have. It's like, in the
1960's, you'd get stuck at the
homes of people with slides.
And slide projectors. And
screens - that's all gone now,
because people have instant
and different means here of
grabbing moments; phone
snaps, on-line stuff, etc. There
are other ways, a million other
ways, of doing memory now.
Nothing really 'matters' any
longer. Mostly even if you
kill someone, or were born
a boy but want to be a girl,
whatever, nothing simply
matters any longer. Back then,
what I'm talking about, things
were way different. The Jones
family, back from California
and Waikiki too, had about
80 photos, as slides, and they'd
be determined to show them.
So you'd go over there, and the
room would be set up, the adults
would filter in, and us kids too,
and the lights went out, after
the drinks were poured, or
beer, and the 'slide show' began.
Each stupid one, with Mr. Jones,
and Mrs. too, and maybe even
the kids, adding their running
commentary. It took forever,
it was boring, and who cared.
In fact, it became one of those
cliched banes of all 1960's
household existence, those
slide things. The only thing
maybe that saved it for me, but
without any comment, was that
I'd get to see Caroline, or even
Mrs. Jones, in a wet bathing suit
while they ran some beach area.
What was anyone supposed to
say? 'Caroline's got a nice bod'
going there, Mr. Jones.' Let alone
the wife. You'd get beaten with a
broomstick. Spare me. I'll buy
a magazine....
-
I used to think about things, I
mean besides all the Carolines
of the world. There wasn't really
much else to do in a place like
Avenel in the years I'm talking
of. If you listened to the Lovin'
Spoonful you were considered
weird - it was all that basic. My
neighbor guy across the street, Ed
Bauer, he worked for one of the
Newark Airport airlines and he'd
every so often bring me stuff he'd
get; found objects, left behind,
unclaimed, whatever - just little,
odd, junk; he kind of knew the
sort of person I was becoming,
and, in the same fashion as Mr.
Bomback from the other chapter
previous, bringing me the old school
window shades, to paint upon, they
each somehow had gotten into my
corner, instead of wrangling with
me as most others did. These were
the sorts of guys I liked. Soulmates,
though worlds apart. Anyway, cool
thing, one time he came over with
two record albums he'd gotten. One
was 'poet' Robert Service reciting
his 'poems of Alaska.' Some crazy
stuff that was. I'd never heard it
before, nor even of it or him. He,
this Robert Service guy, turned
out to be kind of a joke, but
whatever. I've never heard of
him again. (This was like 1966).
The other one was gold. Michael
Olatunji, an LP of 'Drums of Africa.'
I found out more about him. He was
a famed and real African musician,
flamboyant clothing and rhythms,
and he had a big following. It was
just tribal drum stuff, with some
'music,' I guess, thrown in. Cool
thing was, some little time later
he was actually on tour and I caught
his show at Columbia University,
live. Just like the record : people
loved him cheering and stomping.
This whole African tribal thing I'd
never known of - it wasn't primitive,
just raw and authentic. He was pretty
cool. He died some time ago, I
remember the obituary and the
follow-ups. Babatunde Olatunji,
I think it was.
-
When I got back home, after
getting the old exit papers
from the seminary, for that
bit of time left to finish regular
high school I had a little room
in the attic area of the house
- one of those attic rooms my
father had built. It was small,
but I liked it, and the one window,
if I opened it, led me right out
to the slanted roof of the new
section of the house. I'd go
out there often - with a
book or a pad or a sketch-sheet -
and just sit. It faced rear - the
tracks and the area that used to
be the prison farm, now those
miserable retard-village huts.
I'd just sit there and watch the
trains roll by. Go to be I almost
learned the schedule, from
watching all those home-commute
trains. In the dark, it was totally
cool too because I could see
the inside illumination of the
train cars - all those people,
sitting in their light, moving
along the ground and not even
realizing it (actually, that's a
writer's conceit, because I
really have no way of knowing
what they thought about or
not), as they each read their
newspapers or magazines,
or - for my fleeting moments
of glimpsing them - just
seemed to be staring
straight ahead.
-
All these silly trains really
meant something to me, and
when the time came for me to
beat it out of town, even though
I really, really, wanted to be the
train guy instantly, I ended up,
for reasons I forget, on the bus
out of Carteret. It was only later,
and with a vengeance, that I got
into the train thing. Back then
believe you me, trains were
adult. Maybe 75 cents, I forget,
to NYC, maybe less. At some
point it did cross the one dollar
mark. But they were real,
and reserved and quiet and
clean. You just 'felt' important
by being there. Nowadays
(I still ride the trains), they're
they're noisy pigsties, even the
'quiet' cars, which is a joke.
Food smells and drips, people
endlessly chatter, in other
languages too, hordes of
Hondurans - to be alliterative
about it - and mobs of Mexicans
too. And they don't shut up, nor
do their 20 kids, and they simply
apparently, don't care or disregard
regulations as well. But it's OK,
because they have that right.
I suppose. Like I have the
right to suspend their posteriors
out the nearest traveling train
doorway. Life's somehow become
Calcutta, (or Mexico City then),
everywhere, and we've now
allowed it. Carry on,
Toonerville Trolley.
-
What a long, strange trip it's
been, I guess that works fine.
I like things, even though I
disdain things too - slide show,
Avenel : Here's me, at the train
station. Here's me at the old bench
that used to be at the corner by
Rt. One and the old (small)
firehouse. Before it became a
condo. Here's me walking into
Murray and Martha's. And here's
me again, back up on that roof.
thinking about things, picking up
on everything I could before I
split this gingham-dress,
horse-manure pretense of a
place for good. Here's a slide of
trees: Did you know that trees
compete with one another for
light and nutrients, and that
they support one another when
a tree is sick or injured, and that
they communicate threats to one
another be sending out electrical
impulses or by releasing chemicals
into the air? Here's one, from the
old marsh-meadow along Avenel
Park, (gone now, hundreds of
apartments) : The daisy closes its
petals, or even droops over, if
rain is on the way, and the
flowers of the swamp water-lily
close when they sense rain, often
hours before it arrives...Yep, life
is just a question of memory. What
you want to remember, and what
you choose to forget.
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